Slacker G wrote:VI,
Look up RIAA Compression.
All vinyl used it. It is a frequency boost / cut system that allows more information to be put in the walls of groove. Without it you couldn't get any bass response since the bass would rip right through to the adjacent track . Certain frequencies are compressed when pressing the vinyl, then the RIAA preamp that is built into any vinyl player restores the signal to kinda what it was like before it was compressed.
They later used the same type of system to compress and decompress signals going through analog delays. It works something like this. When you record you boost the highs, then when you decompress you cut the highs. By doing that you can push more signal through a limited headroom device. In an analog delay (Bucket brigade) chip it enables you to pack more signal through the stages before clipping. That lowers the noise floor considerably. Samey samey with vinyl. (That's the non technical explanation)
Now don't get me wrong. I always had the BEST gear, and I did enjoy my vinyl system in its day. But with digital I became sort of a purist. I love the extended freq and the almost indiscernible noise floor. I am a big quite freak. I hate noisy FX and the likes. Digital sounds so clean it is like I am playing live in my room. Like it went right from the guitar into my ears. Vinyl has a softer sound, but consider the inaccuracy of a needle bouncing off a wall with the highs mids and lows all fighting for dominance. Hard to imaging how that could have ever possible have worked. And did you know that loudspeakers can only reproduce a very limited number of frequencies? And how does the massive return surge from a collapsing magnetic field in the transformer of a tube amplifier not drown out the itsy bitsy tiny little higher frequencies trying to make their way through that electromagnetic tsunami bass note? The more I know the more I wonder how it all could have sounded so good. 
OUCH ! OUCH! Stop that....
Damn I am getting old. I stand corrected we did use RIAA. i was thinking of outboard compression on top of it. And I have seen it used in cutting. But even if you were to not use RIAA you can still cut a disk without groove jumping. I used to do it. You could never do it today. The total levels alone would prohibit it. But yes, the bass information on most recordings today would never make it. We would lower the bottom end but it wasn't that important. there were no sub woofers in cars back then.
you would think it ungodly to lower the bottom but it was about balance not making 40hz tickle your balls.
